Levitating Spirits
by Daughter of Swift
Summary: So basically Myrtle is in first year at Hogwarts but she doesn't fit in for a number of silly reasons. She feels really lonely and then she meets this other girl and they become friends, so Myrtle is then happy at Hogwarts.


**Levitating Spirits**

Myrtle sat on the couch before of the glowing remnants of the fire and drew her legs into her chest, resting her chin on her knees. She squeezed her eyes tight shut and concentrated on the ticking of the clock. Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock. The warmth of the fire made the room feel cosy and homely, but to Myrtle Hogwarts was far from home.

She played back the memory in her head, the morning she had jogged down the stairs to find a letter sticking half through the letterbox in the front door. She had picked it up, turned it over, and seen a strange, purple seal on the back and presumed it was for her parents. She had absently tossed it to her dad and sat down to start her breakfast, while he began to unfold the odd parchment material that Myrtle had never actually seen in use before. What happened next had been a very interesting scene. Her dad had gone through a number of emotions directly after each other in a total of one minute. First, his face had gone blank, then puzzled, followed by shock, countered by surprise, pursued by anxiety, and finally back to blank. Myrtle covered her face with her hands and laughed hysterically, calling through her fingers "bills not adding up dad? Seriously, the look on your face! Priceless!"

Her dad continued to stare blankly at the letter, so Myrtle decided it must be worth a peek at. She grabbed it out of his hands, leaving him sitting stock still with his hands suspended, letter width apart, in mid-air. That had been when she had found out what she really was: A witch. She had been thrilled to learn she was going to a school of magic called Hogwarts and that she was something special and so had her parents.

Thinking back on how happy she had been back then made Myrtle feel even more depressed. The problems with her new life were simple, but not so easy to change. Firstly, she was a Ravenclaw, so she was somewhat nerdy, though that didn't cause her too much bother as there were lots of nerdy Ravenclaws in the school. Secondly, though, she had the worst case of acne in the entire school, so she stood out like a sore thumb. On top of that, she had a mega-nose, greasy hair, braces, big front teeth and a tendency to moan. The last was probably the one that meant she had no friends, no relationship status and didn't get on well with her teachers. She was also teased a lot about all these stupid things that shouldn't matter.

And that is why, at one thirty in the morning Myrtle was sitting in her pyjamas in the Ravenclaw common room, alone, with nothing better to do than think about how happy she had been before she came to Hogwarts.

"You okay?"

The voice came from behind Myrtle. Her eyes shot open and she wheeled around to see a girl about the one age with her, with scraggly black hair that suggested difficulty in sleeping, and large brown eyes that seemed to be searching Myrtle for answers.

"Oh, um, yeah, I'm fine. Sorry, just got a fright," Myrtle took a shaky breath and leaned her head against the back of the chair. It had frightened her more than she let on. The girl came around the side of the sofa and sat down next to Myrtle.

"Trouble sleeping?" she asked. Myrtle nodded.

"Same. I've been getting confused in our charms classes lately. You know, the levitation charm. I haven't really been able to get it." The girl sighed and lowered her head a little. "I'm Catherine by the way."

"Myrtle," Myrtle smiled a little. She hated her name. It was so stupid and uncommon. "And that levitation charm, I could give you a hand with it if you want," she added. Catherine looked up and whispered, "you'd do that?"

"Sure," Myrtle drew her wand from her pyjamas pocket. Her pyjamas had specially made big pockets to fit her wand. "Show me how you'd do it."

Catherine held her wand out over a pillow, waved it in a 'W' shape and said "Wingardium leviosa."

Nothing happened. Catherine sighed and muttered, "it's no use, I've tried so many times and it's never worked once."

Myrtle shook her head. She wasn't prepared to give up that easily. It must have been the Ravenclaw inside her, but Catherine and Myrtle stayed up until six in the morning practising the charm, and only stopped when Catherine had the pillow suspended up in the rafters.

"Thank you so much!" Catherine beamed at Myrtle and Myrtle grinned back.

"It was fun," she smiled.

The girls didn't bother going back to bed that night. They only had an hour left until they were supposed to get ready for classes anyway, so they just sat and chatted. They laughed together, told stories to each other, and became the kind of friends that stick together forever, no matter what.

The following night Myrtle sat in bed and smiled to herself. Hogwarts felt a lot more like home to her now.


End file.
